Equal Employment Opportunity Commission targets law firms over DEI practices

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has sent letters to 20 top law firms demanding information about their employment practices, a sign it plans to target their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.

The letter from Acting Chair Andrea Lucas, appointed by President Trump the day after his inauguration, said firms’ efforts to diversify their workforce could violate employment laws.

“The EEOC is prepared to root out discrimination anywhere it may rear its head, including in our nation’s elite law firms,” Lucas said in a statement.

“No one is above the law — and certainly not the private bar.”

The letter is the first major action from the EEOC targeting DEI programs, coming at a time where Trump critics fear the administration will turn the agency on its head. The commission was designed to investigate workplace discrimination claims, including those based on race, age and sex. Many of those complaints have traditionally focused on employment practices that exclude minorities.

It also comes as the Trump administration has singled out law firms for their past work, using executive orders to strip a security clearance from one attorney and Covington & Burling while a broader order targeting Perkins Coie stripped the firm’s clearances and included language that would largely bar its attorneys from federal buildings. Perkins Coie has sued over the executive order.

While Covington & Burling was not among the 20 firms contacted by the EEOC, Perkins Coie was, and the firm did not respond to request for comment.

Trump on his first full day in office signed an executive order directing Attorney General Pam Bondi to organize a list of private sector companies that are among “the most egregious and discriminatory DEI practitioners.”

Other actions taken by Lucas since her appointment include a directive to focus its gender discrimination work on “defend[ing] the biological and binary reality of sex and related rights, including women’s rights to single-sex spaces at work.”

She also said she would work to “protect American workers from anti-American bias” and accused some employers of having “policies and practices preferring illegal aliens.”